I Do just keeps on doing it
PLANS TO mate high class racemare I Do this year have been shelved after the mare chalked up her 15th win and her first at Group One level with another outstanding performance in yesterday’s $200,000 Makfi Challenge Stakes at Hastings.
Owners Waikato Stud planned to cover the seven-year-old by their sire Savabeel this spring but Garry Chittick said after yesterday’s win that she may now race for another year.
‘‘It is hard to get a good horse and while they are winning it is hard to stop on them,’’ Chittick said.
‘‘ She’s been a great mare. There wouldn’t be many horses who have won 15 races anywhere, let alone at the level she has.’’
I Do is raced by her New Plymouth trainer Allan Sharrock in partnership with Chittick’s son Mark, who now manages Waikato Stud.
‘‘Allan and Mark can carry on racing her because we’ve got others out of the family that we can breed from at the moment,’’ Chittick said.
Sharrock breathed a huge sigh of relief that I Do had been able to cap her career on the track with a Group One win after she has been one of most competitive mares racing in New Zealand.
‘‘She doesn’t have to do any more now. This win has made her as a broodmare,’’ Sharrock
Meeting: 3 Doubles: 1-2; 3-4; 5-6; 7-8. Trebles: 2-3-4; 6-7-8. Quaddie: 5-6-7-8. Place6: 3-8.
said. ‘‘It is only the second time I’ve lined her up in a Group One and she was only a length and a quarter from the winner in the other one, in last year’s Captain Cook Stakes.’’
I Do’s other wins include this year’s Group III Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa and last season’s Group III Manawatu Stakes at Awapuni.
Sharrock said the mare will return to Hastings to contest the Windsor Park Stud Plate (1600m) on the second day of the carnival and may then have another crack at the Captain Cook Stakes (1600m) at Tren-
Challenge tham in October.
Sharrock said he was confident I Do was going to play a major part in the finish yesterday as the field approached the home turn.
‘‘Gee, wasn’t she travelling at the 500,’’ Sharrock said. ‘‘I knew then that she’d be hard to beat.’’
Jockey Opie Bosson had I Do camped just behind the leading division at that stage and waited until well into the home straight before lodging their claim. The mare drove between horses to hit the lead inside the last 300 metres and kept up a strong run to beat the outsider Pussy O’Reilly by a neck.
They were three-quarters of a length in front of the rest with a line- up for the other minor placings, noses separating Pure Champion (third), Abidewithme ( fourth), Shuka ( fifth) and O’Fille ( sixth). Most of this group are also expected to go on to the Windsor Park Plate (1600m) in three week.
Jockey Noel Harris was impressed by the performance of O’Fille, saying he thought he’d got up for third, such was her finishing burst.
The two disappointments in the race were the well supported pair of Sacred Star (10th) and Recite (last).
Jockey Leith Innes said Sacred Star had every chance in the running but didn’t kick on in the straight like he’s hoped.
‘‘He may need a mile now but he was a bit disappointing,’’ Innes said.
Recite jumped quickly from the barrier and held a comfortable lead until the home turn but was soon under pressure and dropped away.
‘‘ She was disappointing,’’ rider Johnson said.
‘‘She had run really easy sectionals in front but just didn’t have anything.’’
Nashville ran 11th but was held up when trying to weave between runners, and Xanadu was 15th, trainer Ken Kelso saying the distance was a bit too short for the mare who probably also needed the run.
really Danielle